


that all escape lies in the perfect contour

by middlemarch



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Angst, Colleagues - Freeform, Conversations, F/M, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 14:12:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15293265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: There were always reasons why something broke. Divining them was a gift.





	that all escape lies in the perfect contour

“What if you left him?” Vivian asked, watching Q’s eyes, dark but not as dark as her own. He was so young in so many ways and then he’d surprise her—not with his brilliance, she was familiar with genius, but with the soft, subtle wisdom that reminded her of sandstone and fossils, those white cliffs of Dover, the incomparable North Sea and the tired ghosts of Vikings.

“I could never do that,” Q said. She wondered what name he’d been christened with. Benedict? Neville? John perhaps, called Jacky by a fond gran who’d made endless pots of tea and homemade bramble jam.

“Why not?”

“I wouldn’t—he couldn’t bear it, I would know, the whole time. He’d be…hurt,” Q explained with that crooked smile James must have fallen in love with before he realized it.

“You worry about a double O getting hurt?” she said. She worried about Gareth, M they called him, but she was an American and a physician. She knew what could be healed and what could only be diagnosed and waited through.

“I worry about James,” Q said. What a lovely voice he had. She would have fallen in love with it first, before she saw his slender hands and his shoulders, his eyes and the curve of his lips. His throat when he tossed back the last of the cooling tea in his mug.

“Does he know?” She wasn’t even sure exactly what her question was, but she’d find out when he answered.

“James knows everything he needs to,” Q said, running a hand through that terrible tumble of chestnut curls, that should seem feminine and never ever did. “And I know what I want.”

Vivian laughed. He was a clever man, Q, a tinkerer. A dreamer when he chose and a realist the rest of the time. 

“You have such a nice laugh, Vivian. Even when you’re laughing at me, I like the sound of it,” Q remarked. She didn’t feel chastened, because she wasn’t supposed to, but she still wouldn’t tell Gareth this part. Or how she brushed a light kiss on Q’s cheek as she got up to leave and how Q touched his fingers to the spot, considering her.

“That’s a relief,” she said, walking out. Her heels tapped out a toccatina as she went.

“It was meant to be, L. I don’t say what I don’t mean.”

**Author's Note:**

> Seemed like a fun idea to get Q and Vivian (who may go by L for the double entendre of it) chatting. The title is from HD.


End file.
